Salmon, ID - June

OK- I know this is really old, but I wanted to write about our trip to Salmon. It was so fun and I'm glad we got to do it before everything went nuts with moving and everything.

EJ, Daddy and Papper planted some roses and petunias in front of the house. They have to have a fence around them to keep the deer out, but they look lovely.
Birdy was taking a nap, and Bear alternated between supervising and licking the hose.

The happy gardeners with the finished product. I should post the pictures Papper sent of how it is thriving! It looks great!

EJ was the official photographer of the trip and we have a ton of great shots I'll put in another post. She really wanted to photograph wildlife and we went on a couple of "Deer Hunting" trips to find some.

In spite of our deer hunts, the best view we got of them was in Papper's front yard!

Daddy and Birdy with the beautiful (and still snow-covered) Bitterroots in the background.

This was our first time visiting the Sacajawea center during the "Season" (Papper and I walked around outside once in the late fall/early spring one visit). It was really neat and the girls really loved learning all about her. She was from the Lemhi valley in Salmon and was kidnapped and taken East where she met up with Lewis and Clark.

The girls really loved looking in the teepee and walking around the interpretive trails. We learned all about how Sacajawea and her people, the Shoshoni lived and moved around hunting and gathering.

We also got to see Grandma's grave marker. It is lovely and The girls really loved the beautiful flowers nearby!

We had dinner at Aunt Kathy's and the girls got to "meet" Carola- our nephew Danny's then-fiance. Just to give you an idea of what old news this post is, he is now married and living in Argentina! They loved talking to her on the computer and she taught Lily some Spanish. Our favorite thing was seeing how much Charlie loved talking to her- he would shove everyone out of the way so he could talk to her as soon as he heard her voice!

One of the bet parts about this trip was hanging out with this guy before he left for Argentina- what a treat!

Playing with Aunt Kathy and Charlie. The girls were fascinated by Uncle Mark's mountain lion skin and were super-impressed to hear that he shot it himself! I got to hear the story about how he got it and it was very exciting. Uncle Mark rocks!

As always, our visit was too short. I'm so glad that we got to do it before we moved a million miles away. I can't wait until we can go back!

Birdy's Birthday Round 1 (Plus Salmon!)

In what is becoming a scary tradition with us, we celebrated Birdy's 2nd birthday twice. Once in Salmon with DMP's family and once at our house with mine. 

Birdy is lucky enough to have been born on the same day as her cousin David (only 1 hr apart!).  They even got blessed on the same day - here is a pic- Birdy is just seconds away from bawling:

DNow they are both big two-year-old kids:

David came to Salmon with his Mom, big brother and sister, so we decided to throw a party for them- complete with a Winnie the Pooh cake:

The party was lots of fun. Wren had to help David blow out his candles and the cake turned out really, really tasty. 

We were all in Salmon to celebrate my nephew Danny going on a mission. I can't tell you how proud I am of him. His talk was so great and I know that he is going to be a rock star missionary.  

It was also fun to see Grandma, Papper, Aunt Kathy, Charlie, and for the Philips Cousins to play together. Here are some more pictures of our great trip!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="475" caption="Birdy loves Papper!"]

Birdy and Aunt Kathy playing Jack-in-the-Box- a BIG hit!

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[caption id="attachment_406" align="aligncenter" width="503" caption="EJ, Birdy, and Philips Cousins. Getting these guys to sit still is HARD!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_407" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="EJ LOVES her cousin Charlie!"][/caption]